The 22nd Annual River Cities I-O (RCIO) Psychology Conference was held at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on November 7, 2026. Approximately 130 students and professionals participated in this event to explore the topic of managing and working with political conflicts in the workplace. Attendees represented 13 different universities and several non-academic organizations. This event began with a deep exploration of many core themes for this conference by Morelah Hernandez. Throughout the rest of the day, four other core presentations were delivered on and around the theme for this event (summarized in these proceedings). Two highly interactive and engaging poster sessions featured nearly 30 poster presentations. The day concluded with a leadership focused plenary session by Matthew Kohut. More information about all of these RCIO 2026 presentations (including downloadable materials from many presenters) are available in these online proceedings.

The winners of the 2026 RCIO poster competition were as follows:

1st place
Arabella R. Jones, Garrett Brown, Jonathon Kunstman (Auburn University)
Microaggressions predict decent work in LGBTQ Employees

2nd place
Avery I. Livingston, Izzy Kelm, Charlie Wills, Shawn Bergman, Tim Ludwig (Appalachian State University)
Answering the call: examining the relationship between call-in work and occupational injury risk

3rd place
Paige Grogg, Arianna holmes, Teresa Ristow, Tanya Mitropoulos (Radford university)
Themes in discontent with management during and after the great resignation

Browse the contents of 22nd Annual River Cities Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference, 2026:

Sessions
Posters